


I find I’m no tourist anymore

by chainofclovers



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 08:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12338667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/pseuds/chainofclovers
Summary: Frankie watches Coyote watch Grace drink her water, watches Grace watch Coyote drink his, and wonders, not for the first time, how things might have turned out differently for Coyote if she and Grace had gotten together earlier...





	I find I’m no tourist anymore

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm a huge fan of the way Frankie Bergstein's birthday has become a fandom holiday of sorts. I won't be able to post tomorrow, so I'm posting it now as an early birthday present. 
> 
> (And although I missed Grace and Frankie week, this story fits both "motherhood" and "coming out," so I've added it to the collection.) 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it. However you feel, feedback means a lot to me.

_October 14, 2017_

Frankie watches Coyote watch Grace drink her water, watches Grace watch Coyote drink his, and wonders, not for the first time, how things might have turned out differently for Coyote if she and Grace had gotten together earlier. Would Grace have seen something scary that Frankie hadn’t let herself see, a too-keen energy that Frankie and Sol chalked up to “experimentation” for way too long? Frankie and Sol often went weeks without venturing into the liquor cabinet—if Grace had been in the house instead, would she have noticed the changing levels, the vodka replaced with water, the gifted cognac gone missing altogether? And if she had, what would she have done about it?

(The cognac had been an unfortunate present from Robert, who hadn’t yet learned that when it came to booze, Sol had the preferences of a very moderate, very sensible sorority girl. Sol hated the taste and pushed it to the back of the shelf, where the bottle collected dust until sometime in Coyote’s teenage years.) 

Out on the porch one evening, she’d asked Grace if she had her own version of the story, plotlines for Brianna or Mallory that Frankie-as-stepmom might have altered. “Brianna spent the entire summer she was sixteen begging us to let her pierce her belly-button. You’d have caved in a week,” Grace said. And then she cried a whole bunch, not because of tacky navel jewelry but because time was dangerous and evil and fucked-up. 

And anyway, they weren’t there for each other then, but this is now, and there are eight adults and two kids and three babies crammed around pulled-together tables on the patio at Turmeric Thai Kitchen, all because Frankie was born and participated in a series of actions and reactions that led them to tonight. She’s allowed the indulgence of this line of thought; it’s her birthday week. 

It wouldn’t have occurred to Frankie—except for the fact of her certainty that it has occurred to Grace—but they aren’t seated properly, matriarch and matriarch at either head of the table. She and Grace are next to each other in the middle of one of the sides, and it’s so much queerer and safer and nicer here, where Frankie has some hope of hearing what Grace has to say, where she doesn’t have to stop touching her, which is especially great, because Grace deserves to have someone touching her all the time. Madison and Macklin are squeezed together at one end, still small enough to fit though they aren’t entirely happy about the arrangement, and at the other, Bud bottle-feeds baby Graham like he was born for the job. They watch Allison rummage in the baby bag for a cloth, watch Bud tip the bottle expertly, smiling down at the baby. “They’re doing so good,” Frankie says. 

Grace nods, smiling at Frankie before she returns to her menu. “I’m going to have a drink tomorrow morning,” she says, as if she’s decided what she’s having for dinner tonight, her voice quiet so that only Frankie can hear. It’s easier for her to have a sober day if she knows the next day doesn’t have to be, and Frankie understands this, but for a second, Grace’s eyes sharpen like she dares Frankie to protest. 

“Okay, babe,” Frankie says mildly. She pulls Grace’s hand from her lap and brings it to her water glass, wants to give her sweet brain a cold jolting sensation to grab onto. The condensation works almost too well; the din of family conversation fades, and they stare at Grace’s wet hand. “Jesus,” Frankie says, and Grace wipes her hand on the thigh of Frankie’s trousers, leaves her fingers pressed there. 

“Mom!” Bud says, loud enough that it’s obvious it isn’t the first time he’s said it.

“Tell us about the big day.” This from Brianna, seated across from Barry, who’s ended up on the other side of Grace.

“Oh, it was the best birthday ever!” Frankie reports, recovering well. They’d worked only a half day on Thursday, and had book-ended the work with decadence. “Grace made breakfast for breakfast _and_ breakfast for dinner. And chocolate cake with a vegan mocha buttercream.”

“And,” Mallory observes, “based on the way you’re flinging your arm around, she got you some bracelets.” She’s flanked by two high chairs, spoons pureed banana into one baby’s mouth while Coyote not-very-clumsily feeds the other. 

“Yep.” Frankie shakes her wrist. “They’re biographical bangles. And she gave me a really great coupon book.”

“Frankie,” Grace says. Her pleasant fingers tighten, a warning. 

“Cool,” Coyote says. “My band kids have to sell those every year. Where’d you get yours?”

“Homemade, actually,” says Frankie. 

“ _Frankie_ ,” Grace repeats, and Brianna and Mallory share a look, their wide eyes faux-scandalized, though they can’t know exactly what to be scandalized about. “Coyote,” Grace stammers. “If I’d known, I’d have bought one from your students.” 

“You did last year,” Coyote reminds her, gently and carefully. “Remember?” Frankie rolls her eyes. She wishes Grace had figured out some other weak attempt at deflection, because this one is fodder for the rumor among the kids that they’re going senile with age. 

“I remember,” Grace says in her most tolerant voice. 

Coyote continues. “You bought two, actually, because you said Mom used all the frozen yogurt coupons in the first one right away and really needed more.” 

Frankie decides she’ll help Grace out. “Speaking of presents,” she says, scanning the table so she can look at everyone almost at once, “thank you again for yours.” 

Brianna shrugs. “We figured you were gonna do all that clichéd lovey stuff anyway.” She wrinkles her nose at Barry, who grins. 

“And,” Coyote says, “we _wanted_ to.” All the kids are wonderful, Frankie thinks, but sometimes Coyote is sweeter than the rest of them combined. 

The gift—a night out, with gift cards for Extraordinary Desserts and the movies and a wine bar down the street from the theater—feels like a blessing. She’s obviously supposed to spend the gift with Grace, couldn’t have come up with a more traditional date if she’d tried.

Before they did it, months ago by now, they talked a lot about what coming out would feel like. They both assumed it would feel raw, like inflicting rather than receiving the same wound Robert and Sol dealt them, but with the knowledge of how it felt to be on the other side. It would be freeing, yes, but with its own messy cost. It was necessary, though, so they saw it through, gave the most important people in their lives a new vocabulary. Replaced “the beach house” with “Grace and Frankie’s house,” because they weren’t on vacation, waiting for something real to start. Replaced “the odd couple” with “a couple,” because that neat/messy Type A/Type B schtick had long outlived reality. 

But to their surprise—especially Frankie’s—in the family sense very little changed. The What If game was more brutal. The mornings were slower and kinder. But their family—they didn’t hurt anyone.

 

_October 12, 2017_

They clear their breakfast-for-dinner dishes and return to the table so Frankie can open her birthday gifts. She opens the card from her sister, the card from Robert and Sol, cards from assorted friends, and the surprisingly romantic gift cards from the kids, which feel like a gift for Grace, too. Frankie coos over each envelope. 

She opens the silver bangles from Grace, each engraved with a different word or phrase, the _Frankie_ one and the _Nwabudike_ one and the _Coyote_ one and the _Graham_ one and the _Fuck Trump_ one and the _Suck it Ayn Rand_ one and the _Vybrant_ one and the _Salt_ one and the _Sugar_ one and the _Smoke_ one and the one that says _Fourth Ave_ , because the first time they kissed was in the car outside the Indian buffet on Fourth and Broadway, right before a family dinner, walked up the block and into the restaurant just afterwards, jittery and happy and full of their secret, and finally the _Grace_ one, which Frankie holds to her heart before she slides it over her wrist and into its place with the others, midway up her arm. 

If she weren’t so anxious, Grace would realize right now that this gift is going to make their lives a lot noisier. But she is very anxious, despite having told herself over and over that the bangles were the main present, that the other present is no big deal. Now Frankie has opened the coupon book, and this doesn’t seem to be the case. 

The new bracelets collide with each other as she flips through the book, her face serious and still. “Grace,” she says, when she finally looks up from the stapled-together pages. This isn’t the reaction Grace had hoped for. She’d hoped Frankie would laugh, and maybe tear one of the pages out of the book for immediate redemption.

“Yes?” Grace says when Frankie doesn’t continue. “Do you like it?” She cringes, bracing for the response.

“Of course, sure, but do you—I mean—do you feel like there’s certain stuff you’re obligated to do?”

“Obligated? No—”

“It’s lovely of you, but the thought of turning in a coupon, and then there’s something you might feel like you have to do...”

“I’m sorry,” Grace says. She feels like she’s swallowed chalk, like she’s going to be sick. “It was stupid. I just thought it’d be fun.”

“It’s not stupid.” Frankie smiles, and it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Thank you, sweetie.”

In the past, Grace might have changed the subject to anything other than this. Might have waited until Frankie was out one day and torn up the book and thrown the pieces into the recycling, pretended later that she wasn’t sure where it had gone. “Let me explain,” she says. “I could’ve made a coupon book with twice as many pages, or three times as many pages. I wanted to show you all the stuff I, um, want to do with you.” She laughs nervously. “Because there’s a lot of it.”

Frankie pushes her chair so it’s closer to Grace’s. “So it’s sort of like a wish list for you, too?”

“Well, yeah.” 

“And you don’t think you’ll regret giving it to me?”

“No! Frankie, it’s just supposed to be fun. I mean, if you cashed in a coupon and I wasn’t in the mood, I’d tell you.” She takes the book from Frankie, flips to a random page. “For instance, if—well, this is a bad example because I can’t imagine saying ‘no’ to this under any circumstance, but I wouldn’t do anything I didn’t feel comfortable with. I wouldn’t want you to, either.”

“Which page are you on?” Frankie asks, and Grace slides the book so they can both see it. “Oh,” Frankie says as she reads. “Oh, wow. I hadn’t read this one yet.” Like all the pages in the book, this one is made of cream-colored cardstock, trimmed so it’s slightly larger than an index card, handwritten words neat and matter-of-fact. 

 

 _I’ll feel you up for an entire episode of_ Ray Donovan _._

 

Underneath the words, she’s taped a small cut-out of Liev Schreiber’s face, and underneath that is a row of numbers, one through twelve. “Is it a punch card?”

“Right,” Grace says, “so it stays valid for a whole season.”

“What a time to be bisexual in America,” Frankie marvels. “To live in the same era that Grace and Liev walk the earth.” She turns the page. The next coupon is simple and without adornment—just the words

 

_Against the wall._

 

in the elegant script Grace worked so hard in school to perfect. Frankie swallows. “That’s not very specific.”

“I guess the redeemer of the coupon will just have to use her imagination.”

Frankie’s smile is warm this time. “So every page of this book is something you want to do. Or want me to do.”

Grace takes a deep breath. “Yes.” She feels like she might never be coy again in her life, not even for a second. 

Frankie nods, thumbing through the pages like a flipbook. “You know, all those years having sex with Sol turned out to be charity. Just his guilt and his fondness for me.” Grace has never heard her talk like this before. It seems more like a fear than a resolute truth, but it’s there, hurtful and powerful. “Jacob never made me feel like that. And you’ve definitely never made me feel like that.” 

“But you thought—”

“No, I worried. Not the same thing.”

Grace nods. “And my marriage had very little charity at all.” 

Frankie puts her hand on the book, now closed, taps it in a gesture Grace is sure is designed to make the bangles jingle. “Thank you.”

Grace pushes against the table and stands up. “Want your birthday cake?”

Frankie nods eagerly, but then she has a lot of questions. She wants to know if Grace is having any, if they can eat on the couch, if—it is her birthday, after all—it might be possible for Grace to remove her shirt so she can ogle her breasts while eating cake even though it would be a moment so happy that to participate would be to run the risk that Frankie might perish on the spot. 

“Okay,” Grace says when Frankie’s speech is done. She doesn’t even have to think about it.

 

_October 14, 2017_

Frankie engineers it so that she and Grace are the last to leave the restaurant. Outside is dark and mostly quiet, and they walk slowly to their parking spot, fingers grazing each other. When they reach the car, Frankie doesn’t head for the passenger side. Grace opens her door, but before she can sit down Frankie touches her shoulders, brings a hand to her neck, kisses her hard. Frankie is foreign to her own goofy self in these moments, but less foreign all the time.

Grace, brave enough to make the book. Frankie, brave enough to redeem what’s been offered. 

Frankie breaks the kiss and clears her throat, glances around to make sure they’re alone. “There was one that said _You point to it, I kiss it._ And there was one about you touching yourself while I watch. And one that I don’t quite remember, but I’ll know it when I see it again.” 

Grace beams. “Cashing in?”

“I think so,” Frankie says, and they should really head home to get started, but she stays where she is a little while longer, penned between the car and the open door with Grace.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from a line from ["Living Here Now"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52853/living-here-now) by Eloise Klein Healy.


End file.
